As with most of our trip to Alaska, this was a full day. Mike and I set off from Anchorage after my obligatory visit to Starbucks (because, well, I’m addicted). The drive to Talkeetna is about 115 miles and we made good time and even saw a moose and her calf on the way. After spending a few days in the Anchorage area, Talkeetna was a welcome change. I’m not sure I’d call it quaint, but it definitely has character and color.
After a brief look around we headed to the airfield and checked in with K2 Aviation for our Denali fly-in. The weather all summer had been spectacular and this was one of the few days where the mountains were covered in clouds and a glacier landing was unlikely. Our pilot, improbably-named Dorothy, was exceptional. Clearly in command of her craft and with a keen eye on safety we taxied across the Talkeetna airstrip with the tower’s warning “advise, increased moose activity at Talkeena airport.”
Dorothy hit full throttle on the DeHaviland Otter and was up in the air in just a few hundred feet, very quickly followed by three FireBoss crop dusters, headed up to the National Park to drop water on the Riley fire.
We circled Talkeetna and headed north over the lush green forests and bogs surrounding Denali National Park. Climbing though ten thousand feet, the clouds thinned out and Denali emerged well above anything else surrounding it, at 20,310 feet.
K2’s entire fleet, save one Otter, flies entirely with visual flight rules. It was clear Dorothy knew every crevasse and peak, as we weaved through the mountains and over glaciers that flowed on and on for dozens of miles down the valleys they’ve been carving out for millennia. Dorothy again advised that a glacier landing was unlikely, and her assessment proved accurate at the first of two potential landing sites.
But our luck changed only a few minutes later at the second site, Denali base camp, and we were able to set down at about 7,600 feet at the foot of Mt. Hunter and on the Kahiltna Glacier. We were the first flight to land that day and only one of a handful so lucky. There on the Glacier was a group who had recently summited Denali and was awaiting their return flight. It’s likely the waited another day, as the conditions were quickly clouding in, and after only about 15 minutes we took off, weaving back through the mountains and valleys, returning to Talkeetna only 45 minutes later.
We had lunch at Denali Brewing and walked Talkeetna for a bit before heading north another fifty or so miles to see the scenery of Denali from a different vantage. We turned back just about fifty miles from the park entrance, but with our glacier-landing in the park, our visit to DNP was official. All told, we put in about 300 miles of driving and arrived back in Anchorage for a late dinner at The Moose’s Tooth, named after one of the mountains we’d flown by early that day. Solid pizza and a great conversation with a local retired airman from the base in Anchorage.